2 comments:

Edward
said...

Allow me to submit an affirmative proposition to no.2 and no.5 of your list, Mary.If ANYTHING good came from the Council (and as believing Christians, we must hold that the Holy Ghost was 'hovering over the [howbeit trouble] waters), surely it must have been the call to the laity to 'be more involved', but to be so in the universal holiness of the entire Church.I, for one, am convinced that while the Church since Rerum Novarum was expanding its social teaching as challenges presented themselves from this increasingly cold, cruel, capitalistic (and reactionary socialistic), diabolically influenced world, the laity, upon whose personal holiness SO MUCH depends as they are the 'shock troops', if you will, in confronting the World, had as yet to be suffiently stirred.The 'shaking of the tree' which the Council proved to have become, may have been that means by which Our Lord effected His apparently double purpose: the pruning of the vine (which is always somewhat destructive), as well as the renewal of the laity's realization of the role it is to play, not only in the life of the Church, but also in the transformation of the World before the end times as again being salt and light.Just MHO, of course.At least it provides a little sanity.